Ways To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

With New Year’s resolutions comes the inevitable abandonment of those resolutions. Maybe you typically last a few weeks, maybe even a few months, but inevitably you stop going to the gym, stop relearning the French you took in high school or stop reading a book each week. It’s not necessarily anything to be ashamed of — we all do it at some point. This year, though, maybe you can make it to October instead of April, with a few precautions in place.

Keep your goal where you can always see it. Maybe you want to get back to your high school weight. Keep a photo of yourself from high school everywhere you may feel tempted to cheat on your diet — on the fridge, on the mirror, on the dashboard of your car. Maybe you actually do want to read one book for every week of the year. While it might be a bit cumbersome to have 52 books lying around where you can see them all the time, keep your pre-decided 52 titles and a highlighter handy. Keep the list in your purse, on your nightstand, on top of the TV remote.

Social accountability can add a little bit of needed peer pressure to the mix. Make a point to tell the people around you about your resolution and ask them to keep you accountable. While one accountability partner may let you down, if all of your friends and family members are keeping you accountable at once, it’s a bit harder to fail. Take the social accountability a step further by keeping a record of your progress on your social media account, for all the world to see.

When all else fails, keep it simple, starting with your actual resolution itself. Instead of picking a very specific goal, pick a goal word for the year, and then work toward embodying your definition of that word. ‘Happy,’ ‘intelligent,’ ‘cultured,’ ‘caring’ or ‘helpful’ — there are lots of positive options to choose from.